Ferguson protest blocks I-580

Traffic is snarled in both direction of Interstate Highway 580 near Lakeshore Avenue in Oakland as protesters walk on lanes Monday night following a grand jury’s decision to not indict a police officer in a fatal Missouri shooting.

The California Highway Patrol issued a Sig-alert at 8:36 p.m. for traffic stopped on eastbound and westbound Highway 580. Hundreds of protesters walked on westbound lanes where CHP officers and vehicles have assembled in a line. About two dozen people were seen climbing the center divide to eastbound lanes where officers were chasing them down.

About 1,000 people gathered in Oakland in response to the grand jury’s decision announced around 6:30 p.m. in the shootingdeath of 18-year-old Michael Brown by Officer Darren Wilson on Aug. 9 in Ferguson, Missouri.

The protesters started gathering at Frank H. Ogawa Plaza at 14th Street and Broadway earlier in the evening before the announcement chanting:

“The whole damn system is guilty as hell. Indict, convict, send the killer cop to jail.”

More people started gathering at the intersection around 6 p.m. and yelled, “Hands up don’t shoot” and “Black lives matter.” Many protesters held a “die-in” in which they laid down on the street with their bodies traced with chalk on the roadway.